title: The what-where trade-off in multiple-identity tracking.
abstract: Observers are poor at reporting the identities of objects that they have successfully tracked (Pylyshyn, Visual Cognition, 11, 801-822, 2004; Scholl & Pylyshyn, Cognitive Psychology, 38, 259-290, 1999). Consequently, it has been claimed that objects are tracked in a manner that does not encode their identities (Pylyshyn, 2004). Here, we present evidence that disputes this claim. In a series of experiments, we show that attempting to track the identities of objects can decrease an observer's ability to track the objects' locations. This indicates that the mechanisms that track, respectively, the locations and identities of objects draw upon a common resource. Furthermore, we show that this common resource can be voluntarily distributed between the two mechanisms. This is clear evidence that the location- and identity-tracking mechanisms are not entirely dissociable.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland St., 760 William James Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. michaelthecohen@gmail.com [corrected].
authors.forename: Michael A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Cohen
authors.forename: Yair
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Pinto
authors.forename: Piers D L
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Howe
authors.forename: Todd S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Horowitz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001245:Association Learning; D001288:Attention; D003118:Color Perception; D003463:Cues; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D004215:Distance Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D008875:Middle Aged; D009039:Motion Perception; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011930:Reaction Time; D055815:Young Adult